African Peanut Soup
This past weekend I took a whirlwind trip to Florida. I so needed to soak up the sunshine, warm weather, and the beach. I needed a reprieve from life in West Michigan. Not only from the winter and the gray weather, but parts of my life here. I recently experienced a break up with a guy I'd been dating for close to a year now. It ended due to spiritual differences, and I must say I've had it out with God lately. In my eyes, there was no one to be mad at except myself or God. So I've been doing half and half. Somewhere in the past bit, I've started to cringe whenever people attribute good things to God. Maybe I've been angry at God's timing and answers to my prayers and that of others around me. I also have had a really hard time feeling His presence, which was once quite close to me. At church, we've been talking about how life is just a vapor, a spray of mist that is here and gone. That's how feeling God has felt to me. So what better place to escape all of life's woes than Florida?
My friend had a goal to read 100 pages of her book each day that we were in Florida. Me not being an avid reader, I took my flighty self for a walk down the beach. I've clearly been lacking quality time with God lately and decided it was as good of time as any to have a bit of a chat. I told God how directionless I felt, how antsy and obsessed to achieve and accumulate what I don't need, and questioned why I wasn't to be "the one" for my former plus one. So there I laid it out. I dished out the bursting anger contained within me. I felt so compelled and yet so directionless and unfulfilled all at the same time. All those are fine when you actually are still feeling God in your life. But I felt I had just been seeing evidence of God and not actually feeling His presence. It's different.
Ya know what happened next? Through my tears I started to feel God. I thought it was just going to be another mist experience- there and gone the next moment. But as I sat there, there He was. I sat reveling in this experience until finally it seemed time to get back on the move. My next thoughts were to go back to my friend. As I pondered, I could feel the wind physically blowing the opposite direction. If you think of a V and me sitting right at the bottom, the wind was blowing directly in the opposite direction of that fork in the road. I've often heard how God is like the wind- you can't see Him but you can feel Him and see evidence of Him all around. So in that moment, I was compelled or rather pushed by the wind externally and by God internally to go that opposite direction. It was rather surreal. Like a movie, I'd say. I took maybe 5-10 steps and all the while questioning what in the goodness gracious was happening. And there I saw someone sitting by themselves on the beach with a dog. The next crazy nudge happened leaving me saying: Oh no. Please be wrong; please, please, please. The nudge got stronger and I was finally sighing: Okay if I must. The next thing I knew I was right next to the lady, petting her dog and asking if she might have time for a little chat. I explained that I had been chatting with God and felt like I should go talk to her.
And chat we did. She talked about her family, where she'd been in life, what brought her to Florida, and about delicious recipes. I conversely shared a bit about myself too. I'm sure you're now at the edge of your seat just waiting for me to say- and then I shared the gospel with her. Nope. That didn't happen. That first mention of God was the only one. I sat chatting and wondering that same thing- what was I doing there and why? All the sudden she started commenting on the sunset and I had quite a ways to return back to my friend. We hustled back towards where I had come from. We parted, but not before she was offering me some African Peanut Soup. She'd been raving about the recipe and now was offering my friend and me the left overs in her fridge. We exchanged numbers and decided we'd meet up the next day on the beach.
I gushed to my friend about the experience, and then decided- hey, why should we be the only ones eating something? This meet up was soon to be a picnic with tea, soup, and bread. We reconvened the next day but this time with my friend and food. Again we chatted for over an hour. Again, no spiritual moment happened and I wondered if I had just mistaken the wind for a nudge but still ended up with a good story. We laughed at how strangely we had met and then it was time to part ways. The last thing she said to me was: You know, you're like my dad. You collect people. Right then and there I recalled God asking the disciples to become fishers of men. I had been asking for life direction and feeling God's presence, and there both of them were. I'm to collect those random people that God chooses and make their story part of mine. I'm an instrument for people to see God.
God picks interesting ways to tell you things. Sometimes it takes hardship to get to the place where you'll really be listening to God. Sometimes it takes obeying those nudges and just watching how the story unfolds. Sometimes it takes fellowship with people and a little bit of African Peanut Soup. God intersects our lives with the lives of His other children in some of the most mysterious and baffling ways. And while this may be the last time I see the woman from the beach, maybe it won't be. Maybe I'm to be used for pointing her life to God or maybe God used her to show me what my real purpose is in life. Somehow I know this is just the beginning of the story- God's story of how He used me to collect His people back to Him.
My friend had a goal to read 100 pages of her book each day that we were in Florida. Me not being an avid reader, I took my flighty self for a walk down the beach. I've clearly been lacking quality time with God lately and decided it was as good of time as any to have a bit of a chat. I told God how directionless I felt, how antsy and obsessed to achieve and accumulate what I don't need, and questioned why I wasn't to be "the one" for my former plus one. So there I laid it out. I dished out the bursting anger contained within me. I felt so compelled and yet so directionless and unfulfilled all at the same time. All those are fine when you actually are still feeling God in your life. But I felt I had just been seeing evidence of God and not actually feeling His presence. It's different.
Ya know what happened next? Through my tears I started to feel God. I thought it was just going to be another mist experience- there and gone the next moment. But as I sat there, there He was. I sat reveling in this experience until finally it seemed time to get back on the move. My next thoughts were to go back to my friend. As I pondered, I could feel the wind physically blowing the opposite direction. If you think of a V and me sitting right at the bottom, the wind was blowing directly in the opposite direction of that fork in the road. I've often heard how God is like the wind- you can't see Him but you can feel Him and see evidence of Him all around. So in that moment, I was compelled or rather pushed by the wind externally and by God internally to go that opposite direction. It was rather surreal. Like a movie, I'd say. I took maybe 5-10 steps and all the while questioning what in the goodness gracious was happening. And there I saw someone sitting by themselves on the beach with a dog. The next crazy nudge happened leaving me saying: Oh no. Please be wrong; please, please, please. The nudge got stronger and I was finally sighing: Okay if I must. The next thing I knew I was right next to the lady, petting her dog and asking if she might have time for a little chat. I explained that I had been chatting with God and felt like I should go talk to her.
And chat we did. She talked about her family, where she'd been in life, what brought her to Florida, and about delicious recipes. I conversely shared a bit about myself too. I'm sure you're now at the edge of your seat just waiting for me to say- and then I shared the gospel with her. Nope. That didn't happen. That first mention of God was the only one. I sat chatting and wondering that same thing- what was I doing there and why? All the sudden she started commenting on the sunset and I had quite a ways to return back to my friend. We hustled back towards where I had come from. We parted, but not before she was offering me some African Peanut Soup. She'd been raving about the recipe and now was offering my friend and me the left overs in her fridge. We exchanged numbers and decided we'd meet up the next day on the beach.
I gushed to my friend about the experience, and then decided- hey, why should we be the only ones eating something? This meet up was soon to be a picnic with tea, soup, and bread. We reconvened the next day but this time with my friend and food. Again we chatted for over an hour. Again, no spiritual moment happened and I wondered if I had just mistaken the wind for a nudge but still ended up with a good story. We laughed at how strangely we had met and then it was time to part ways. The last thing she said to me was: You know, you're like my dad. You collect people. Right then and there I recalled God asking the disciples to become fishers of men. I had been asking for life direction and feeling God's presence, and there both of them were. I'm to collect those random people that God chooses and make their story part of mine. I'm an instrument for people to see God.
God picks interesting ways to tell you things. Sometimes it takes hardship to get to the place where you'll really be listening to God. Sometimes it takes obeying those nudges and just watching how the story unfolds. Sometimes it takes fellowship with people and a little bit of African Peanut Soup. God intersects our lives with the lives of His other children in some of the most mysterious and baffling ways. And while this may be the last time I see the woman from the beach, maybe it won't be. Maybe I'm to be used for pointing her life to God or maybe God used her to show me what my real purpose is in life. Somehow I know this is just the beginning of the story- God's story of how He used me to collect His people back to Him.
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